The pounding at the door behind her head suggested otherwise. She reached for the key in the lock but too late. It turned under her hand and the door was pushed open with enough force to knock her backward.
Dev took only one step in. He curled his hand around her arm, his smile far too normal for all she knew must be going through his head. His gaze took in Barbara and the medical satchel in her hands, and then it settled on Marietta’s face. “Mother said you came up here. I need to speak with you, darling.”
She prayed her smile looked every bit as easy, despite the thundering of her pulse. “Of course, Dev. I’ll be just a moment. I’ll find you in my drawing room.” A few minutes, that was all she needed to escape.
“No. It’s urgent.” A muscle ticked in his jaw as he glanced at Barbara again. “Is it not her day to be at the hospital?”
Barbara shifted her satchel from one hand to the other. “I was needed here. Cora—”
“Too bad.” His lips twitched, as if ready to snarl, and he spun Marietta into the hall. When he twisted the key in the lock and slammed shut the door, Barbara trapped inside, Marietta couldn’t contain the squeak of outrage.
“What are you doing? You cannot lock my guest in—”
“I can.” He jerked her down the hall, slipping the key into his pocket. “Had she been where she was supposed to be, it would not have been necessary.”
Was there a second key in the room? Or the window—she could open a window and hail Walker whenever he came home. That might not be soon enough to save Marietta, but it would guarantee Barbara would be all right and there to help Cora. “I fail to see why it is necessary now. Whatever is so urgent that—”
“For once in your life, Mari, do what you’re told.”
He increased their pace, and she could scarcely find air enough to breathe. Why had she let Mother Hughes retie her corset this morning in Cora’s stead? The woman seemed bent on tight-lacing.
Dev tugged her around the corner and to the stairs leading to the third floor, where only the family bed chambers were. She dug in her heels. “Where are we going?”
She got the feeling his pause would cost her. That shadow in his eyes looked alive and ready to devour her. “Immediately? To your room so you can pack a few things. We are taking a little trip.”
The maps flashed. The rails leading to Harper’s Ferry and then westward to Cumberland. The caves, that dot marked as an inn. So far away. So many places for him to hide, both the stockpile and himself. And her?
Marietta shook her head. “I cannot travel with you, you know that. We are not yet wed—”
“A predicament I tried to remedy last week, if you recall.” He pulled her closer, his hand a steel band on her arm, his eyes flashing danger. “Let me make this very clear, darling. Choose me. Choose me above whatever else might tie you here—your family, your friends, your dashed new faith—or those things will pay. I will sever every bond holding you back until you are solely, wholly mine. Do you understand?”
Her throat closed off, and her fingers tangled in the muted gray silk of her dress. His eyes churned with a shadowy passion—one she knew too well. One she had been seeing since the nineteenth of December 1860. How had she ever been so foolish as to call it love? Love could have no part in such darkness.
But then, perhaps one couldn’t see that truth until one abided in the Light.
She had no choice but to nod and let him pull her up the steps. A plan was called for, but she needed time to devise how to get away without him hurting the people she loved.
Their images flashed before her. Each and every person she held dear. Only this time her imagination got involved and transposed that awful poster overtop them. Mama, Daddy, Granddad, and Grandmama with bloody slashes across their faces. Cora, Walker, Elsie, and Barbara. Her brothers, their wives and children. Slade.
When Dev forced her into the corridor of family bedrooms, his mother stepped into the hall. For a second, one shining second, she hoped some help would come from the woman.
“Are we traveling by coach or train, Devereaux? I need to know what to pack.”
Obviously a vain hope.
Dev growled. “What do you think, Mother? Do we own a coach company or a railroad?”
A shiver stole through her. Never, in all the years she’d known him, had he spoken so harshly to his mother.
Mother Hughes seemed just as taken aback. “Devereaux Hughes, there is no call for such impertinence.”
“Oh, but there is. You have three minutes, or I leave without you. And you, darling.” He gave her a shake and shoved her toward her door. “Three minutes, or you go with nothing.”
He released her arm once she was inside. Perhaps he would stride away to attend something else, and she could—but no. He withdrew the pistol on his hip and used it to direct her toward her boudoir. “I believe your trunks and bags are in there?”